I Prepared For My Wedding, Only To Be Shut Out Of My Own Bridal Suite Chapter 01

I Prepared For My Wedding, Only To Be Shut Out Of My Own Bridal Suite Chapter 01

My wedding was twenty-eight minutes away, and I was locked out of my own hotel suite.

The manager ran his master key through the reader three times. Three red lights.

“Miss Whitlock, I’m sorry. The keycard isn’t working.”

For a second I thought I’d heard him wrong. “It’s my wedding suite. How am I locked out?”

He was starting to sweat. “The suite is under Miss Mercer’s name now.”

“She changed the keycard access at check-in this morning. Without Mr. Langford’s authorization, nobody gets in.”

Nobody moved. Nobody said a word.

My mother’s smile died on her face, the garment bag with my wedding dress still hanging heavy off her arm.

Everything was in that room. Veil, jewelry, shoes, bouquet: my whole wedding was behind a locked door.

With the ceremony starting in twenty-eight minutes, that locked door might as well have been a wall.

I called my fiancé Bennett Langford.

He got there in under a minute. And the first thing he did didn’t even involve looking at me.

He put his ear to the door. Listened. Only when he was sure nothing stirred inside did the tension leave his shoulders.

“Sloane spent all night getting the venue ready for us. She just fell asleep.”

“Do your makeup in the room next door. Let her sleep.”

He stood between me and that door like he was guarding it.

“Bennett. Everything I need is in there.”

“Do your makeup first. It’s no big deal. I’ll go in and grab your things once she’s awake.”

I glanced at my watch.

“You have thirty seconds. Open that door, or the wedding is off.”

…

His brow knitted. “Maren, don’t do this. Not today.”

“We’ve been together for seven years. Nobody knows better than me how long you’ve dreamed of this day.”

“You’re really going to throw all that away just because you have to wait a little longer?”

Not a flicker of doubt in his voice.

Seven years, and he’d never held them like something precious. He held them like a leash, and he was certain I’d never slip it.

The planner sprinted up, radio crackling on her hip. “Miss Whitlock, every guest is seated. We go in twenty-five minutes. Why are you not in your dress?”

Bennett’s hand shot up to hush her. “Keep your voice down. Sloane just fell asleep.”

The makeup artist was nearly vibrating. “Hair and makeup alone take forty minutes. That dress has more than twenty buttons down the back.”

“If that door doesn’t open right now, the updo and the veil aren’t happening.”

Bennett didn’t blink. “Then skip the updo. Pin the veil, light makeup, done.”

I turned to face him fully.

“So out of everything today, my hair is what gets sacrificed?”

“This hotel has a hundred empty rooms. Why is she sleeping in mine?”

“Because she’s already out cold. She has a heart condition. A bad startle could trigger something.”

My father moved up beside me, jaw set. “Whose wedding is this, exactly?”

“Mr. Whitlock, I know this is our wedding.”

“Then act like it. Open the door.”

My mother clutched the dress to her chest, her voice gone soft with pleading. “Bennett, we won’t step inside. Just crack it open. Let Maren grab her things.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“If that door opens, she wakes up. It’s that simple.”

Mom’s fingers closed around the skirt, wringing a deep crease into all that white.

She’d been on her feet with me since four a.m.

Now she stood in a hotel hallway pleading with him to just let us slip in, all so I could get my own wedding dress back while another woman slept in my room.